Bugs and Suggestions

Rajesh R Subramanian10-Jun-08 4:09

10-Jun-08 4:09

I just clicked on the email link on my own message and sent a test email. I never received it. There are no filters to stop, I am using Yahoo mail, I checked the spam folder as well (I've given the thing enough time to reach me as well, but to no luck).

It is just not me, there are other members who have faced this issue and this has been discussed once in a while on different places of the site. I've been appreciating the good things, but I'll need to tell you the bad things as well. Trust me, the email thing doesn't work! It may work with your account, but I guess there are a few more million accounts around that you need to get it work with. Smile | :)

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP

Chris Maunder10-Jun-08 4:11

Chris Maunder

10-Jun-08 4:11

Try sending an email to me

cheers,
Chris Maunder

CodeProject.com : C++ MVP

Rajesh R Subramanian10-Jun-08 4:23

10-Jun-08 4:23

Got it?

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP

Chris Maunder10-Jun-08 4:29

Chris Maunder

10-Jun-08 4:29

Yep

cheers,
Chris Maunder

CodeProject.com : C++ MVP

Rajesh R Subramanian10-Jun-08 4:31

10-Jun-08 4:31

See here[^]. Big Grin | :-D

PS: I never receive an email if someone else sends me via this option. May be we should take a little survey on this. Smile | :)

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP

Rajesh R Subramanian10-Jun-08 5:08

10-Jun-08 5:08

FYI[^]

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP

⁷³Zeppelin11-Jun-08 22:06

⁷³Zeppelin

11-Jun-08 22:06

Did you receive my email regarding the voting?

CPallini7-Jun-08 23:52

CPallini

7-Jun-08 23:52

Are you applying 'robust statistics'?
Big Grin | :-D

If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler.
-- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.

This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong.
-- Iain Clarke

⁷³Zeppelin8-Jun-08 0:15

⁷³Zeppelin

8-Jun-08 0:15

CPallini wrote:
Are you applying 'robust statistics'?

I hope so!

It's actually not a complex algorithm, but it does seem to eliminate the influence of really crazy '1' votes while still allowing for some possibility that an extremely outlying vote could be genuine (but it does treat it suspiciously).

Rajesh R Subramanian10-Jun-08 4:33

10-Jun-08 4:33

Can you try some little thing for me? Try sending an email to yourself (using the email link) and tell me the results?

(Read the discussion between me and Chris in this thread).

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP

CPallini10-Jun-08 5:04

CPallini

10-Jun-08 5:04

Done pal. I haven't yet received it (twenty minutes elapsed).
If eventually I'll receive it. I'll make you know.
Smile | :)

ETA of Snippets?

Hans Dietrich5-Jun-08 13:01

Hans Dietrich

5-Jun-08 13:01

Since you are now in a feature-enrichment mode, I just wanted to ask about one of my favorite (missing) features. Can you give us a rough estimate? How about an Under-the-Covers peek at how it will work?

Best wishes,
Hans

[CodeProject Forum Guidelines] [How To Ask A Question] [My Articles]

Chris Maunder7-Jun-08 3:38

Chris Maunder

7-Jun-08 3:38

Better still: why don't you tell me how you would like it to work. We're working on something similar (but not actually nippets - snippets will come easily once we have this next feature done) so now's a good time to tell me whet you want r don't want.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

CodeProject.com : C++ MVP

Hans Dietrich7-Jun-08 22:45

Hans Dietrich

7-Jun-08 22:45

Thanks for asking!

I have uploaded image that shows mockup of what I would like - please see here: http://www.codeproject.com/script/Membership/Uploads/15759/snippetmockup.png[^]

Here are points I think should be considered:

Snippets are organized by language.
Images are not allowed in a snippet article.
There is no download in a snippet article - readers can cut and paste from snippet page, maybe with help of special "Copy" button. (Copy button would also facilitate keeping track of usage).
Snippets must be standalone - not require any third-party non-free library or SDK. Dependence on things like boost/WTL/MFC or other freely available library is OK, and should be stated in environment (see Snippet Wizard below). Snippets that are useless without purchase of vendor products are not allowed.
Each snippet has its own forum just like articles.
Each snippet has rating just like articles.
Snippets accrue points for authors just like articles, at the rate of 10 snippets = 1 article.
You can bookmark and watch snippets just like articles.
Member page should have Snippets Submitted link just like Articles Submitted.
There could be "best snippet" monthly competition.
Snippets are small and compact, and the UI to view/search for a snippet should be the same. In mockup, note there are two lines per snippet plus one blank line. The idea is to view as many snippets as possible in available space.
You should be able to specify how many snippets you want to view per page, and how they are sorted - see mockup. You should be able to remain on Snippet main page to do searches, sorting, etc.
The Snippet Submission Wizard should be very streamlined. There should be a (limited) space for author's comments, platform dependencies, and compile/environment requirements (e.g., "COM must be initialized before function is called", "Function only works on Vista", "Platform SDK must be installed", etc.). Snippets have a title, but no description field.

I encourage everyone to post your comment here, so Chris will know what you would like.

Best wishes,
Hans

[CodeProject Forum Guidelines] [How To Ask A Question] [My Articles]

My thoughts on snippets...

peterchen8-Jun-08 5:22

peterchen

8-Jun-08 5:22

My thoughts, in order of apearance:

1. The main problem of snippets is finding, nor presenting them. With due respect, the current search engine in respect to simplicity and responsiveness is probably not up to the task

2. Instead of "starting wiht an article, and take things away", start from ground up. What more than an edit box do we need?

title, snippet, comment, language, tags.

3. Tags. I know, Web 2.0 is a fad, but the fixed hierarchy of CP articles doesn't bite it, and tags are here to stay.

list of "known tags", to consolidate spelling etc.? Tags given by community?

4. Related Snippets

On your comments:

Mockup:
"Updated", "Bookmark" and "Watch" don't matter on the results page - to much bloat. OK as popup menu.
I'd rather have a list of tect, or abbrev of the comment there.

Use ajax-style UI updates to quickly view one of the snippets in the result. Navigating to a new page doesn't cut it.

Snippets that are useless without purchase of vendor products are not allowed
Disagree.

Each snippet has its own forum just like articles
I'd prefer wiki-style over author-bound, or a comment wiki? Yes, this opens up a can of community-management worms. As old fart and supported, I of course have not much problems with limited editing rights Big Grin | :-D

Thinking about it, I wouldn't like a forum mostly because of the clutter - the forum quickly is larger than the snippet!

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Shog⁹8-Jun-08 7:18

Shog⁹

8-Jun-08 7:18

First, a disclaimer: i hate snippet sites. I love the idea of having snippets, but i've never seen an actual repository for them implemented in a way that didn't disgust me. Code gets added, and it rots. Frequently there are numerous submissions from numerous authors, presenting similar solutions to the same problems, rarely ever improved based on comments, never consolidated in a way that would make it easier for someone looking for a solution to pick the proper one. All too often, code is ripped directly from a project, and gets uploaded with bizarre dependencies or side-effects still in place. Comments are hit or miss; maybe the author explains why he's using ValidateRgn() instead of BeginPaint()... or maybe he leaves it up to the end-user to work out, or guess at, or just use hoping that the author wasn't on a paint-huffing binge when he wrote it.

So yeah, those are my prejudices, the reasons why i'm so down on seeing snippet articles posted here. That said...

Hans Dietrich wrote:
Images are not allowed in a snippet article.

I don't see any point to disallowing them across the board. I strongly feel that they should be removed if they aren't useful - gigantic screenshots of a snippet for calculating bounding box intersection, or someone's logo for instance. But disallowing them seems like it would only encourage the attitude of "code and run, don't think, don't write" that i fear.

Hans Dietrich wrote:
There is no download in a snippet article - readers can cut and paste from snippet page, maybe with help of special "Copy" button. (Copy button would also facilitate keeping track of usage).

I agree with this one. All code should be in the article proper, although a means of marking bits of the code as belonging to one file or another, with an option for the user to download the code in that form wouldn't go amiss (in the case of C++ especially, where traditionally even trivial bits of code often require both a .h and .cpp file... but, also handy for HTML+CSS+JS solutions, C# + XML solutions, etc).

Hans Dietrich wrote:
Snippets must be standalone - not require any third-party non-free library or SDK. Dependence on things like boost/WTL/MFC or other freely available library is OK, and should be stated in environment (see Snippet Wizard below). Snippets that are useless without purchase of vendor products are not allowed.

I don't really have a strong feeling about this; if done right, the system should work equally well for folks posting and searching for Crystal Reports formulas as it does for C++ classes, without one interfering with the other. While it certainly isn't desirable to encourage blatant advertizing via snippet-posting, i think that's only a problem if we adopt the current article system (one owner, one editor, a voting/reporting system the only option for removal of inappropriate material).

Hans Dietrich wrote:
Each snippet has its own forum just like articles.

Absolutely.

Hans Dietrich wrote:
Each snippet has rating just like articles.

I'm... not so sure. I hate the idea of allowing scores of competing snippets for a given problem and hoping that enough people vote to allow picking out the best one. What if they all have problems? What if i think the problem itself is bad ("how to disable context menus on a web page") and vote-slam all answers for that reason alone?
I'd rather give editors the power to quickly remove or combine duplicates and sub-par snippets, and leave the comment system as a means of providing feedback.

Hans Dietrich wrote:
Snippets accrue points for authors just like articles, at the rate of 10 snippets = 1 article.

Eh... Naw. Snippets aren't articles. If ten snippets together would make a good article, then the author should do that - but i expect a lot more from an article than ten random bits of code.
No reason not to keep separate stats for snippets though.

Hans Dietrich wrote:
8. You can bookmark and watch snippets just like articles.
9. Member page should have Snippets Submitted link just like Articles Submitted.

Sure.

Hans Dietrich wrote:
There could be "best snippet" monthly competition.

Eh... Naw. I fear that once you turn this into a popularity contest, any hope of collaborative review or editing goes out the window.

Hans Dietrich wrote:
The Snippet Submission Wizard should be very streamlined. There should be a (limited) space for author's comments, platform dependencies, and compile/environment requirements (e.g., "COM must be initialized before function is called", "Function only works on Vista", "Platform SDK must be installed", etc.). Snippets have a title, but no description field.

IMHO, something closer to the forum post editor might be appropriate - subject, body, replace signature with tags, improve code editing, and we're there. The rest of the stuff can be folded into either the snippet body (in comments) or as tags.

Final thoughts
As you might have guessed, i'm in agreement with peterchen that this should be a wiki-style system rather than a one-snippet-one-author system like articles. I want to go in and see that twenty people have edited a given snippet, that there have been bloody arguments over the appropriate ways to use an API, that MSDN and the KB have been referenced. I want the snippet to be the collective best work of all of CodeProject, not one author's late-night hack tossed to the dogs.

If we end up doing snippets just to cater to the mob currently hammering the article wizard with badly formatted crap, then i don't see how it'll do anything but drag down the reputation of the site as a whole. I'd hate to see that, especially when we have the chance to make it so much more.

Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

[Out of Topic] Re: ETA of Snippets?

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar8-Jun-08 19:26

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar

8-Jun-08 19:26

Hans Dietrich wrote:
http://www.codeproject.com/script/Membership/Uploads/15759/snippetmockup.png[^]

Just was curious regarding the script /Membership/Uploads? Does CP started to give File Attachment feature to messages? How do you access it? Or is it currently restricted to a few members only?

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
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All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare

Re: [Out of Topic] Re: ETA of Snippets?

Hans Dietrich8-Jun-08 20:11

Hans Dietrich

8-Jun-08 20:11

Go to My Codeproject page. On right you will see My Uploads. If this is not on your My Codeproject page, then there must be something required, but I do not know what that is. Somebody should start a FAQ on this stuff.

Best wishes,
Hans

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